DVP Suicides Not Newsworthy
Martin C. Winer
“The Don Valley Parkway has reopened following a police investigation that had closed the southbound lanes from Eglinton Avenue to the Bayview Avenue/Bloor Street ramp for several hours.” [i] Those few simple words from the official news report veiled a darker truth. On the roadway below the Millwood St. bridge a woman lay veiled in a white sheet; dead, nameless and not newsworthy. Other non-newsworthy witnesses reported scattered pieces of flesh but that isn’t what people wanted to hear during their commute. [ii]
Commuters wanted to hear when the damned highway would open again so that they go to and fro from work and about their business. After all, the economy is down and a closure of the DVP is the last thing Toronto needs as it tries to emerge from the recession. The world is on the brink of the next ‘greater’ depression, and we can’t afford to be concerned with human depression.
To prevent any suicide related delays to business, the City of Toronto constructed a multimillion dollar barricade on the Bloor St. viaduct to prevent just this sort of inconvenience. A cold metal architecture suspiciously rife with crucifixes keeps the depressed from interrupting our workday.
Over the years there have been talks of constructing a similar structure on the Millwood bridge which is now the ‘favoured’ bridge of jumpers. This reasoning is a classic example of detached bureaucratic thinking trying to solve a human problem with technology.
When we look at the problem of suicide from a human perspective, erecting barriers to prevent it is like the allegory of the Dutch boy who sealed a leaking dam by putting his finger in the hole. A cold, hard crucifix bedecked barrier will never replace the warm compassion of an empathetic human heart.
[i] http://cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090826/090826_don_mills/20090826/?hub=CP24Home
[ii] http://www.theilliteratescribe.com/2009/08/bits-of-flesh.html
[iii] Photo Credit: http://www.marielugli.com/Viaduct/supportsystem_9.htm
